Vehicle visors are typically mounted on the headliner of a vehicle and secured to the underlying sheet metal roof by an elbow and bracket which permit the visor to be moved from a forward windshield position to the side window, depending upon driving conditions.
Plastic vehicle sun visor brackets, however, are often damaged during installation to vehicle roof sheet metal, due to misalignment caused in part by lack of installer awareness of proper position, especially if the sheet metal is covered by a considerable thickness of other materials, such as padding, spacers, shims, wiring and other headliner materials.
Plastic brackets also tend to have a larger central boss than die-cast metal brackets, allowing less clearance between the bracket boss and a matching hole in the inner roof sheet metal. This increases the likelihood of breakage caused by the bracket boss catching on the sheet metal during installation. Insertion and starting of mounting screws through the bracket mounting holes into matching holes in the roof inner sheet do not provide adequate alignment of the bracket boss with its matching hole in the roof inner sheet. This is due, in part, to looseness of tolerances between screw diameter and bracket mounting hole diameter and, in part, to installers who start mounting screws into the roof inner sheet at an oblique angle.
One prior art design is illustrated in FIG. 2 of the drawings. The bracket illustrated therein is made from die-cast metal and includes a relatively small central boss. Protrusions or prongs extend parallel to the axis of the central boss and are inserted in slots formed in the inner sheet metal roof for orientation and location of the bracket mounting holes. Because of its small size, the boss itself does not serve a locating function and is in no danger of catching on the sheet metal once the mounting screws are started.
Another prior art design is illustrated in FIG. 3 and is utilized with a D-shaped opening formed in the inner metal sheet of the roof. Such a design, however, fails to compensate for vehicle headliners having a substantial thickness and, consequently, the bracket is often damaged during installation, due to misalignment.
Other mounting mechanisms for vehicle sun visors generally of the type to which the present invention relates are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,529,157, 4,553,797, 4,818,013, 4,634,196, 4,352,518, 4,729,590 and 4,569,552.